Bottled Water Crisis

In 1976 each North American on average drank 1.6 gallons of bottled water per year, by 2006 that number jumped to 28.3 gallons per person (224 bottles).  We pay twice the cost of gasoline per litre for bottled water that is polluting our planet and our bodies.  Time to ask ourselves WHY we are doing this, when we have clean, safe & free water available to us from our taps!

• Environmental Impact 
• 137,000,000 disposable water bottle are consumed per day in the U.S. alone! (Over 50 Billion per year)
• Only 22% of those disposable water bottles will get recycled
• It takes over 700 years for plastic to decompose
• The amount of oil used to produce water bottles each year could fuel over 1,000,000 cars for an entire year

Cleanse Meal Suggestions

Accepting the Detox Challenge? 
Below are some suggestions of "allowed" foods for breakfast, lunch, dinner & snacks during your cleanse.  
Set yourself up for detox success by making a meal plan for your 7 day cleanse, shop for ingredients and prep what you can in advance!  
Also check out our Recipe Share page- it has lots of creative gluten free vegan recipes safe for your cleanse. 


Breakfast:
Gluten free oatmeal or steel cut oats topped with fruit and nuts
Muesli with non-dairy milk and fresh fruit
Gluten-free toast/bagel with almond butter or no-sugar jam
Smoothie (Fruits & veggies with ground flax seed or hemp hearts)
Greek yoghurt (With "Skinny B" or "Holy Crap" sprinkled on top)
Rice puff cereal with non-dairy milk
Rooibos Chai Tea Latte 
Glass of pure & natural orange juice 

Composting

Wikipedia defines compost as “organic matter that has been decomposed and recycled as a fertilizer and soil amendment. Compost is a key ingredient in organic farming. At the simplest level, the process of composting simply requires making a heap of wetted organic matter (leaves, food waste) and waiting for the materials to break down into humus after a period of weeks or months.”

Compost is a great way of keeping unnecessary matter out of the landfill and is beneficial for the land in many ways, including as a soil conditioner, a fertilizer, and as a natural pesticide for soil.

I started composting last year and I did not do much research until recently on how to successfully compost so we will see if I actually have compost to use this summer or if I have just created a pile of stink in my back yard. Either way it’s out of the landfill right? With all of the recycling and composting that I do I was able to downsize my city garbage can and save $20 a year. Not only that but I am hopeful that it will improve my garden this year as well. I was surprised by how easy it was to start composting. I bought a composter, built it in half an hour, bought a cute little bucket and instead of throwing my food scraps in the garbage I put them in my bucket. Then once a week I go dump my bucket into my composter. Sounds about as easy to me as putting it in the garbage and taking the garbage to the curb. Now I will admit that sometimes I forget about the bucket and it becomes a little unsightly but I put on some gloves, give it a clean, and all is well again. It’s really not that bad, so come on and give it a try!

Detox Challenge

Our bodies are designed to flush out toxins, but with all of the preservatives, pesticides, artificial flavours & colors, and other chemicals we expose ourselves to daily, our bodies can’t keep up, and the toxins often end up stored in fatty and other tissues in the body. Polluting ourselves like this cause our organs and systems to work harder increasing the chances of illness and disease.

Sick and tired of being sick and tired? Fed up with headaches? Bloated? Want to improve concentration and mood, manage allergies, and stimulate digestive health? Experience loads of healthful benefits by accepting the “Detox Challenge!”


I am challenging you to a 7 day cleanse/detox. It cuts out the “Big Bad 5” foods that are hard on our digestive systems, and adds in lots of nutritious, fiber-rich foods that will scrub out all that built up gunk! . Read the "Eat these, Avoid these food lists", "Detox Prep", "Cleanse Meal Suggestions" posts and visit our "recipe share page" for wealth of information!  *To read this rest of this article, Please just scroll down a bit & click "Click Here to READ FULL POST"*

Eat These, Avoid These, FOOD Lists

What to consume and Not to consume on a Cleanse

Eat as much as you want of these foods:

Fruit: Fresh, frozen, dried, no sugar-added fruit juices, canned Fruit (Packed in water) 
Vegetables: fresh, frozen, canned (no sodium added)

Detox PREP

A few steps to prep you for detox success!!

3 weeks before

1)Commit, pick a date & find some friends to partake in the detox with you (to encourage you & keep you accountable)!

2)Detox suggests drinking a whack load of filtered water each day of the detox period, so ensure that you have access to filtered water in your daily routine (preferably not from plastic bottles).  I ordered a stainless steel (to avoid PBA plastic issues) water bottle with a built in filtering system so that I can have all my filtered water anywhere, anytime. Currently 40% off at www.naturesalternatives.com 

3)If you are still holding onto your favorite chemical-laden cleaning and personal care products, now is the time to put that extra effort into replacing them with clean alternatives!  It would be a shame to work so hard to detoxify, only to be adding toxins back into your body daily from the products you use! (If you need suggestions on clean alternatives, ask me!)

2 weeks beforeThe following are ways to enhance the detoxification process during your cleanse that you may want to prepare for: